The Three Religions Confront Him
Jack Shives's blacksmith shop, off the Main Street of Cedar Mountain, was noted for two things: the sound, all-round work it turned out in the smithy line, and the "perchers," an ever-present delegation of village characters that sat chewing straws as they perched on the shop lumber. Most of them came to hear old Shives talk, for Jack was a philosopher and no subject was out of his field. Hartigan liked Shives, enjoyed the shop with its smoke and flying sparks, and took a keen relish in the unfettered debate that filled in the intervals between Shives's ringing blows on the anvil.
Dr. Jebb thought himself a very up-to-date divine. He had tried to have a sort of free discussion in his study Sunday nights after meeting, but the restraint of parsondom was over it all. He was really a painfully orthodox old person; all his up-to-dateness was within the covers of the catechism, and the real thinkers kept away. Dr. Carson had better success, but he was a bitter politician, so that all who differed from him on national or local politics avoided his house. The blacksmith shop, however, was open for all, and the real discussions of the village were there. Shives had a masterful way of assuming the chairmanship, and of doing the job well, often while pounding the anvil; sometimes an effective punctuation of his remarks came in the hiss of hot iron thrust in the tank, and Shives enjoyed the humour of obliterating his opponent for the moment in a cloud of steam.
Jim Hartigan, with his genial, sociable instincts, was found in Shives's shop more often than in the tiny room which, with the bed, table, and books, was all he had in the way of home. Dr. Jebb was afraid to take any large part in these deliberations. They were apt to discuss what he considered the undiscussable foundations of the Church. But Dr. Carson was one of the most strenuous of the debators.
"I tell you, there ain't a bit o' use o' your talking," said Shives. "If I stick my finger in that fire, I'm a-going to get burnt and all the prayers and repentance I can put up ain't a-going to wipe off that burn. I've got to suffer for what I do just the same, whether I belong to church or not."
"Sure, now," said Hartigan, "if I see your point, there is little to it. You are talking about sin being its own punishment, which is true; but suppose a doctor came along and by his work and skill saved you from losing the finger altogether and in the end your finger was little the worse and you were much the wiser—what about your theory then?"
"That is not the point. If it was the same thing, when I hurt my finger I would only have to say, 'I repent; the Lord will take my punishment,' and at once my finger would be restored as it was before."
"Well, that may be your Church's creed, but it isn't mine," said Hartigan; and they wrangled till the blacksmith halted in his raking of the coals, turned to Hartigan, and beating in the air with his coal rake like a band leader with his baton, he said with punctuated emphasis: "My creed tells me I must suffer for my own doings just as surely as if I lay my finger on this anvil and hit it a crack with the hammer, and no man can save me from that, and if you tell me that God is a wild beast and merely wants a victim to punish, no matter who, then I want to know where the justice comes in. There is not any greater wickedness than to let the guilty escape, except it be to punish the innocent; and that's the whole sum and substance of your religion, which was neatly summed up by old Blue Horse down at Pine Ridge. After he had heard the missionary explaining it for about the thousandth time, he said: 'Ho, me see now; your God is my devil.'
"I tell you there's only one sum and substance of all religion that's worth while, and that is to be a kind, decent neighbour, do your work, and help others to do theirs. You will find that set forth, straight as a string, in your own textbook, where it says, 'Love your neighbour as yourself.'" And the blacksmith drew the radiant iron from the forge to pound, pound, pound, amid the laughter that proclaimed the defeat of the Preacher.
Hartigan was never strong on theology. At college he had neglected the chance to learn the cut and parry in that strangest of all games, and the puzzle for which he had no quick answer was that of the burnt finger. In the smithy debates the answer had to be quick, or it was no answer at all. He had lost the chance and was mortified to see the verdict of the crowd against him.
"Jack," he said, "I want you to come to church and see how simple it all is."
"Church. Huh! I think I see myself," said the blacksmith.
"That's not fair," said Hartigan. "You condemn church without going to see what it is."
"Oh, I've been there a-plenty."
"When?"
"Twenty years ago."
"Oh, pshaw! It's all changed since then."
"Is it? That's a good one. I thought God's religion was unchangeable for ever and ever. I tell you, young fellow, if you keep on working and thinking you will wind up with a religion of common sense and kindness which, as near as I can make out, is what the man Jesus did preach."
"Then why don't you come to hear it?" retorted Hartigan.
"Because ye don't preach it."
"That's not a fair way to put it," reiterated Hartigan.
"See here," said Shives, "I will go to church next Sunday and right along, if whenever you get off some fool statement that every one knows is nonsense, you let me or some one get up and say, 'Now prove that, or take it back before you go further.'"
Hartigan was worsted. He did not retreat, but he was glad of the interruption furnished by a wild horse brought in to be shod. Here he took the lead and showed such consummate horse sense in the handling of the animal that the blacksmith growled, "If you'd put some of that into your pulpit, I'd go to hear you."
As Jim mounted Blazing Star and rode away at an easy swing, all eyes followed him, and the blacksmith growled: "'Homely in the cradle, handsome on the horse,' they say. He must 'a' been a clock-stopper when he was a kid. Pity to waste all that on a pulpiteer."
Later, the Preacher had a full discussion with Belle. The blacksmith had dented Hartigan's armour in several places. Where was the justice in punishing one being for another's sins? Even if the sufferer was willing, it was still wicked injustice. How could repentance wipe out the self-brought injury? These were among the puzzles. Dr. Jebb was his natural helper, but the Preacher brought them first to Belle. She had gone deeper and further than he had. She dreaded doctrinal discussion, but at length said:
"Did you never hear of the transfusion of blood whereby a man may give of his strength and, by suffering, save a friend from death? Did you never hear of a man tottering and almost down who was found by a friend at the right moment, helped to greater strength by mutual suffering, and so restored to his balance before he went down to ruin?"
And the fervent answer was, "Yes, I have."
New vistas were opened to them by this open-hearted talk—truly communion—and as they rode through the gray-bloomed sage they followed still the thought. Then he waved a hand and raised his face toward Cedar Mountain with its column seeming small against the sky.
"I want you to see it, Belle. I want you to stand there with me and know how much it means when your spirit is just right."
She swung her horse with his and they headed for the trail. He had talked to her about it before, but he had felt a little disappointed that her imagination was not stirred as his had been—that the mystery and charm, the emotional awe, so easy for his Celtic blood, had not been conjured up in her by his words. But he still had hopes that the feeling of the far-up shrine would weave enchantment of its own; and he told her of the second sight that the fay of his mother's land could give if one sang a song of the one right pitch in the glen of the "very stone."
So they rode through the sage to the trailing cedar robe and followed upward till the upper edge of the fragrant woods was reached. There they tied the horses and climbed on foot to the upland. The grass among the rocks was yellow now, and high gentians seized on the rare moment to flaunt their wondrous blue against that perfect background. A flock of autumn birds rose up and flew on, as the climbers, reaching the Spirit Rock, paused and turned to look out over the golden plains to the east, over the blue hills to the north, and into the purple glow that the waning sunlight left on all the west.
Belle rejoiced in it for its material beauty and its wealth of colour; and Jim, shyly watching her, said:
"Sometimes as I stand by this rock pinnacle and look over the plain, I feel as if I were an ocean rover, high up in the lookout, peering over the rough and tumbling sea. It possesses me with more than the power of a dream." Then, after a pause: "See, here is where the Indian boy was sitting as he kept his fast and vigil. I wonder what he saw. Some day, Belle, I want to take that vigil. Do you remember that the prophets of old always did so when they sought light? I am learning that the Indian had some light, and to-day I have done as he would do, I have brought my sacred medicine with me." He produced a little cedar box that his father had made. He opened it and deeply inhaled its fragrance. "That is cedar, Belle; it carries me back to other days when, under the cedar shingles, my mother put her arm about me and prayed that I might find the Eternal Guide."
He took out his mother's Bible, her photograph and the daguerreotype of his father. These were his sacred relics, and with them was a bundle of cedar twigs to keep the fragrance ever there—to keep continually with them the power, through smell, to conjure up those days and thoughts of her love. Belle took them reverently and gazed at the prim old pictures; then she looked him squarely in the eyes, intensely for a moment, like one who looks through a veil for the first time and sees a hidden chamber unguessed before.
"Belle," he said, and his voice was a little husky; "if I had gone on to the Big Cheyenne that time, I would have built a fire as soon as I had the chance and burnt all these to ashes; and then what—God only knows, for these were the vessels of my sanctuary; this was the ark of my covenant, with the rod that budded, the tables of the law, and the precious incense." She laid her hand on his in silent comprehension and he went on. "All my life I have had two natures struggling within me; and the destroyer would have won, and had won, when you turned the rout. If you had not come to me in Deadwood I would surely have burnt these relics. Now you understand. I couldn't speak about it down there; but up here it is easy. Some time I may be missing for a couple of days. Do not worry then; it will only mean I have gone up into my mountain. I am seeking the light that comes from prayer and fasting and vigil in a high place."
"I know those things as words," she said. "Just as we all learned them in Sunday-school; but you make them as real as this mountain, a part of my very life."
He replaced the relics in their cedar box and she realized that for the first time she had had a glimpse of the deep and spiritual quality of his soul.